Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication, and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for opportunistic small cell triggering by a user equipment.
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of eNodeBs that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with an eNodeB via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the eNodeB to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the eNodeB.
In some wireless communication networks, a user equipment (UE) selects and maintains a connection with a base station providing communication capabilities for the UE. Further, in such wireless communication systems, small cells (e.g., Home Node B) may be deployed to improve wireless network communications when experiencing poor base station connections. In such wireless communication networks, small cells may have lower transmit power so they may have smaller coverage area. As a result, there may be instances where the small cell will not have users within the coverage area. As such, inefficient utilization of available communication resources, particularly radiating overhead for cell power and resource management, may lead to degradations in wireless communication by causing interference for other cells. Even more, the foregoing inefficient resource utilization may inhibit network devices from achieving higher wireless communication quality. In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with current power and resource management technology. Thus, improvements in opportunistic small cell triggering are desired.